Floor Statements

Mr. President, on March 2, we voted on a short-term continuing resolution. We vote today on another. I opposed the earlier measure, and for the same reasons, I oppose this one as well.

First, this legislation makes unjustified cuts in important Federal programs. These cuts will affect the safety and well-being of Americans who already have suffered through the worst recession since the Great Depression, and who still are waiting for a robust economic recovery to lift their fortunes.

The cuts in this bill include a more than 15-percent reduction in important agricultural research programs that help our farmers fight threats such as plant diseases and invasive species. And they include a reduction of $200 million--almost 25 percent--in funding for community- oriented policing grants that help local law enforcement agencies afford the equipment they need to keep our communities safe.

Second, while this legislation will do real damage to important programs, it will have little effect on its professed target: the Federal budget deficit. Focusing solely on cuts in nondefense discretionary spending, as this and previous continuing resolutions have done, cannot solve our budget problems, because those programs make up less than 15 percent of our budget.

Lastly, this legislation makes not even a gesture toward what must be an essential part of any deficit-reduction strategy: revenue improvements through the closing of tax loopholes and a rollback of the unjustified tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans that occurred under President Bush.

I will repeat what I have said before: We cannot seriously dent the Federal budget deficit unless we address revenues as well as spending. This is a matter of simple arithmetic. Hacking away at a narrow slice of the budget cannot significantly reduce our deficit. But it can do significant damage to our Nation's safety and security and to the welfare of American families. Passing legislation that does such damage is an error; passing it while failing to address unjustified tax cuts and loopholes that benefit the wealthy adds insult to injury.

Mr. President, the Senate is poised to approve a concurrent resolution providing for the acceptance of a statue of President Gerald R. Ford to be placed in the Capitol. I am proud as a Michiganian, and proud as an American, to support this resolution.

In this turbulent moment, it is good to remember that this is not the first time our Nation has faced adversity. At another time--a time of distress and doubt and anguish--Gerald Ford assumed our Nation's highest office. We were fortunate indeed that at that time of great danger, Jerry Ford was there to take the helm and keep our country on an even keel.

President Ford's courage in the performance of his duties and his willingness to act in the Nation's interest even when it brought criticism were the capstone of a lifetime of service. As a young Navy officer during World War II, this son of Grand Rapids served his Nation with distinction. In December 1944, when a great typhoon and fire threatened Ford's ship, he demonstrated the courage and cool judgment that would serve him so well in Congress and the White House.

Gerald Ford served Michigan and his country for 13 terms as a Member of the House of Representatives, earning bipartisan respect. He became Vice President at a time of great controversy, but it was in navigating the storm that brought him to the Presidency that he provided his greatest service. At a time when our nation needed healing, he was a healer. When we needed unity, he was our unifying force.

The people of Michigan are proud to call Gerald Ford one of our own. Placement of this statue, a gift from the people of Michigan, in the Rotunda of the Capitol on May 3, will be a fitting tribute to his service.

Mr. President, for the Committee on Armed Services I report favorably the following nomination lists which were printed in the Records on the dates indicated, and ask unanimous consent, to save the expense of reprinting on the Executive Calendar that these nominations lie at the Secretary's desk for the information of Senators.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Madam President, yesterday the Senate rejected two bills to provide funding for the rest of this fiscal year. I voted against both bills, and I want to explain why and to explain what I believe is the only course open to us if we are to be serious about reducing the budget deficit.

It was a victory for the American people when the Senate voted overwhelmingly to reject the spending bill sent to us by the House. House Republicans who tell us they want to reduce the deficit have proposed a cure that does little to cure our budget disease and does great damage to the patient in the meantime.

The House bill proposed cuts in nondefense discretionary spending, and in that area alone. Simple math suggests that we cannot meaningfully reduce the deficit in this manner. These programs represent less than 15 percent of the total budget. Not surprisingly, then, the Republican proposal would reduce our projected budget deficit this year by only a token amount. As a matter of fact, it would reduce our budget deficit this year by less than 1 percent.

The Republican plan fails the test of seriousness about the deficit, but it would have done significant damage to programs that Americans depend on. It would have cut more than $1 billion from Head Start. It would have eliminated early childhood education programs for more than 200,000 American children. It would have cut or eliminated Pell grants for hundreds of thousands of college students. It would have cut $61 million from the budget request for food inspections, despite the fact that thousands of Americans every year suffer from foodborne illnesses. It would have cut $1 billion from the Women, Infants and Children Program, weakening a program that helps poor families put food on the table. It would cut $180 million from the Securities and Exchange Commission budget and more than $100 million from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission budget. And those are the regulators. Those are the cops we need on the beat to make sure we oversee the financial markets that recently devastated our economy.

It would have cut nearly $290 million from the Veterans' Administration efforts to provide better service to our veterans.

The House budget would have cut $1 billion of funding for community health centers, eliminating primary care for millions of Americans.

The proposal of the House of Representatives, which we soundly defeated here yesterday, would have cut $550 million from National Science Foundation research, another $1 billion plus from Department of Energy research, and almost $900 billion from our support for renewable energy sources and energy conservation. All of that would make us even more dependent than we now are on foreign oil.

The Republican proposal from the House would have cut $2 billion from clean water programs, putting public health at risk, and it would have cut $250 million from the Great Lakes restoration efforts.

The House proposal would have cut more than $120 million from the President's request and more than $350 million from the fiscal 2010 level from border security efforts. That is the very issue--border security--which the Republicans, including the Speaker of the House, have called their No. 1 priority. Yet their budget would have cut more than $350 million from the 2010 level for border security.

We need to make spending cuts, and I think all of us know that. We have to reduce and remove redundancy and inefficiency in the government, and it exists. The President has proposed cuts. We need to seek more cuts and we need to act. But the cuts the Republicans proposed aren't about increasing efficiency. Their proposal, as Senator Manchin pointed out yesterday, blindly hacks at the budget with no sense of our priorities or of our values as a country. So we wisely rejected that path.

We also rejected a second proposal, and I voted against that one as well. I rejected it because while it avoided the

blind hacking at the budget in which the House Republicans engaged, it focused solely on cuts in nondefense discretionary spending. We had two choices yesterday, Draconian cuts or more targeted cuts. But those are not the only two choices available to us. We can choose to seriously address our budget deficit by acknowledging that it cannot be significantly reduced until we understand that increased revenue as well as spending cuts is part of the solution.

How can we raise additional revenue without slowing the economy? We can end the excessive tax cuts for the upper income taxpayers President Bush put in place. We can close tax loopholes that not only drain the Treasury but send American jobs abroad to boot.

The cost of the government to continue that upper bracket income tax cut President Bush was able to obtain is about $30 billion a year. Ending that $30 billion tax cut, which goes to roughly 2 percent of Americans at the very top--those earning more than $200,000--could allow us to avoid the drastic cuts in important programs I have mentioned, and much more besides.

Increasing revenue makes sense not only from a deficit reduction perspective, it is also fair. Those at the top, incomewise, have done very well as a group in recent decades, while incomes for most Americans have stagnated. To be specific, the top 1 percent of all income earners has more than doubled their share of total U.S. income in the last few decades--from 8.2 percent in 1980 to 17.7 percent in 2008. Meanwhile, median household income--the income of the typical American family--is now 5 percent lower than it was in the late 1990s. To eliminate programs that are critically important to working families while maintaining tax cuts for those whose incomes have soared would be a grave injustice.

There are also other revenues we could look to if we are truly serious about deficit reduction. There are a number of tax loopholes we can close. For example, we should not continue to give corporations a tax deduction when they send American jobs overseas. We should not allow corporations and wealthy individuals to avoid U.S. taxes by hiding assets and income in offshore tax havens. We should not allow hedge fund managers to earn enormous incomes and yet pay a lower tax rate than their secretaries pay.

The American people are looking to us. They are concerned about the size of the deficit and the effect it might have on future generations. But they also reject the notion that Draconian cuts--cuts that fall hardest on working families--are the answer. They see the wisdom and the fairness in making sure all Americans share in the sacrifices that will be required as we seek to reduce our deficit.

We have an opportunity now to show the American people that we understand too. We can craft a plan now that preserves vital programs, that makes prioritized and necessary cuts in spending, but also a plan that recognizes the need for comprehensive approaches that address revenue as well as spending. In the coming days, we need to adopt such a comprehensive approach.

Madam President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, the badly misguided budget cuts contained in the legislation the House has sent to us threaten to strangle our fragile economic recovery before it can truly begin. The House bill would weaken the social safety net that helps keep our communities together; it would end education opportunities that give Americans a chance to succeed; it would weaken investments in science and new technologies that we need to make our Nation competitive globally; and it would make our Nation less secure.

Our colleagues in the House have diagnosed a patient with heart disease--and prescribed amputation. Their proposed cure would do little to heal the disease of budget deficits, and in the meantime, do a lot of damage to the patient. They propose to solve our budget woes by slashing nondefense discretionary spending--which makes up a mere 15 percent or so of the Federal budget. In fact, the Congressional Budget Office told us just this week that if we eliminated all nondefense discretionary spending--every last dime of it--we would still run budget deficits by 2016. We cannot solve the budget problem this way, no matter how hard our Republican friends try to convince Americans that we can.

Republicans say we should interpret their drastic, unbalanced and extreme legislation as sending a message on their seriousness about the deficit. But the only message it sends is that they are serious about eroding important programs from Head Start to job training to Pell grants to food inspections to border security.

This legislation would cut $61 million from the Presidential budget request for food inspections, sending the message that we don't need to worry about food safety, despite the thousands of Americans every year who suffer from food-borne illness. It would cut over $1 billion from the Women, Infants and Children Program, sending the message that we should do less to help poor families put food on the table.

Our Republican colleagues are serious about cutting more than $180 million from the Securities and Exchange Commission budget and more than $100 million from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission budget, sending the message that we don't need to put cops on the beat to police financial markets that all too recently devastated our economy.

They are serious about cutting nearly $290 million from Veterans Administration efforts to provide better service to our veterans.

Their bill would cut $1 billion in funding for community health centers, sending the message that health care for citizens who would lose it under this proposal is a secondary concern. They would remove $17 million from the research on immunization and respiratory disease, a message that we can cut back on efforts to fight childhood illness.

Their bill would cut $550 million from the National Science Foundation research budget, and another $1.1 billion from Department of Energy research. It would cut about $900 million from our support of renewable energy sources and energy conservation--sending a message that we need not worry about high gas prices and dependence on imported oil.

Their bill would cut $2 billion from clean water programs, putting public health at risk, and cut $250 million from Great Lakes restoration efforts, putting at greater risk our unique Great Lakes, on which hundreds of thousands of jobs depend.

The Republican bill would cut more than $1 billion from Head Start. Their message seems to be that 200,000 American children don't really need an early childhood education boost so they can grow up to compete in a global economy. Their bill would also cut or eliminate Pell grants for hundreds of thousands of college students. The Republican message: American families don't need help to meet the rising cost of college.

Speaker Boehner's Web site proclaims that ``[s]ecuring our borders and stopping the flood of illegal immigration into the United States must be the first priority of this Congress.'' So what does the House bill do? It cuts more than $120 million from the President's request and more than $350 million from the fiscal 2010 level from border security efforts.

Now, the supporters of the House bill tell us that they regret the need for these cuts, that these would be worthy programs in happier times, but that the fiscal straits in which we find ourselves make their cuts necessary. They say we have no choice.

That is false. We do have a choice. We can end the excessive tax cuts for

upper income taxpayers that President Bush put in place, and close tax loopholes that not only drain the treasury but send American jobs abroad to boot.

The cost to the government of those upper income tax cuts is an increase in the deficit of about $30 billion a year. Ending that $30 billion tax cut for the wealthy--for the roughly 2 percent of Americans at the very top--could allow us to avoid the drastic cuts in important programs that I have mentioned, and much more besides.

It is very difficult in my book to treat proposals adding $30 billion a year to the deficit by protecting tax cuts for upper income earners as serious deficit reduction.

There are also other revenues we can look to if we are truly serious about deficit reduction. There are a number of tax loopholes that we can close. For example, we should not continue to give corporations a tax deduction when they send American jobs overseas. We should not allow corporations and wealthy individuals to avoid U.S. taxes by hiding assets and income in offshore tax havens. And we should not allow hedge fund managers to earn enormous incomes and yet pay a lower tax rate than their secretaries and janitors pay.

When we are willing to tackle those issues, when we recognize that the solution to our deficits must be comprehensive, when we acknowledge that it must include revenues, when we acknowledge the need to close those tax loopholes, then the American people will know we are serious about deficit reduction. Then, and only then, will we be able to tackle the deficit without threatening the education of our children, or making it harder to afford college, or cutting food programs for children, or damaging our support for science and technology, or making our border less secure, or reducing efforts to find new sources of energy, or setting back so many other investments in our future well- being.

I commend Senator Inouye for his attempts to craft an alternative package that would avoid the draconian cuts that Republicans have proposed. But I cannot support that legislation. It deals only with cuts in nondefense discretionary spending, and as a result it gives support to a pattern of debating only spending cuts as the solution to our deficits, when it fact the solution to this problem must include additional revenue as well.

Mr. President, I thank my colleagues, Senator Leahy, who is the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, and Senator Grassley, who is the ranking Republican, for including in the Patent Reform Act a provision that a number of us have been working on for several years to stop the granting of tax strategy patents.

The key provision contains the text of legislation that Senators Baucus, Grassley and I, as well as others, introduced earlier this year, S. 139, the Equal Access to Tax Planning Act, to end the troubling practice of persons seeking patents for tax-avoidance strategies. Issuing such patents perverts the Tax Code by granting what some could see as a government imprimatur of approval for questionable or illegal tax strategies, while at the same time penalizing taxpayers seeking to use legitimate strategies.

Since 1998, when Federal courts ruled that business practices were eligible for patent protection, the Patent and Trademark Office has issued more than 130 patents for tax strategies, with more than 150 applications pending. These patents are a terrible idea for two reasons.

First, they may be providing unintended support for abusive tax shelters. Some unscrupulous tax shelter promoters may claim that the patent represents an official government endorsement of their tax scheme and evidence that the scheme would withstand IRS challenge. Given the well-documented problem we have with tax avoidance in this country, allowing persons to patent tax strategies is not only a waste of government resources needed elsewhere, but an invitation to wrongdoers to misuse those government resources to promote tax avoidance.

Second, the granting of tax patents threatens to penalize taxpayers seeking to use legal tax strategies to minimize their tax bills. If a tax practitioner is the first to discover a legal advantage and secures a patent for it, that person could then effectively charge a toll for all other taxpayers to use the same strategy, even though as a matter of public policy all persons ought to be able to take advantage of the law to minimize their taxes. Companies could even patent a legal method to minimize their taxes and then

refuse to license that patent to their competitors in order to prevent them from lowering their operating costs. Tax patents could be used to hinder productivity and competition rather than foster it.

Federal patent law is supposed to encourage innovation, productivity, and competition by encouraging inventors to innovate, secure in the knowledge that they can profit from their efforts. In the tax arena, there is already ample incentive for taxpayers to seek legitimate ways of reducing their tax burden, as the wealth of advice and consulting in this area demonstrates. Injecting patents into the mix encourages abusive tax avoidance while raising the cost of legal tax planning at the same time, both to society's detriment.

I introduced the first bill to ban tax patents back in 2007. Since then, Senators on both sides of the aisle have been trying to get this problem fixed. The language in the bill before us today is designed to put a halt to the issuance of patents for tax strategies once and for all, including for the 155 pending applications. Although the bill does not apply on its face to the 130-plus tax patents already granted, if someone tries to enforce one of those patents in court by demanding that a taxpayer provide a fee before using it to reduce their taxes, I hope a court will consider this bill's language and policy determination and refuse to enforce the patent as against public policy.

The tax patent provisions of this bill are significant, but they are not the only reasons to support passage. This legislation will create jobs, help keep our manufacturers competitive and strengthen and expand the ability of our universities to conduct research and turn that research into innovative products and processes that benefit Michigan and our Nation. It also will assist the new satellite Patent and Trade Office that will be established in Detroit by modernizing the patent system and improving efficiency of patent review and the hiring of patent examiners. One objective of the new office in Detroit is to recruit patent examiners to reduce the backlog of patent applications. This legislation is a huge step forward in that effort.

Madam President, let us be clear about where we are. The legislation before us is designed to avoid a shutdown of the Federal Government. It would provide funding for a 2-week period while we continue to debate and negotiate funding levels for the rest of fiscal year 2011. The price its supporters want to exact for that 2-week respite is our agreement to major cuts in spending, without any attempt to address our deficit by closing tax loopholes.

I do not believe we should pay that price. Let me offer one example why. Under this continuing resolution, the Army Corps of Engineers' investigations budget--the funding for Army Corps studies of possible projects--would be reduced by 35 percent, for the whole year, not just this 2-week period. The Corps' construction budget would be reduced by 17 percent. What does that mean? It means that the Army Corps of Engineers, which already faces a huge backlog of necessary projects, would be deprived of a big chunk of the funding it needs to do its vital work, funding that was included in the President's budget for 2011.

This legislation exacts other big cuts. It reduces funding for surface transportation projects by $293 million. We will not build needed roads and bridges--and we will not gain the jobs those projects would create--under those cuts. We will also cut tens of millions of dollars from energy research projects at the very moment our Nation faces the urgent task of liberating ourselves from dependence on foreign oil. These cuts will damage our economy today, and they will damage our competitiveness tomorrow. They will do our country harm.

The new House Republican majority sent us those spending cuts while continuing big tax cuts for upper income taxpayers. Last year, when we approved the extension of those tax cuts, I opposed them. I did so because I feared that they would create such strain in the budget that some would argue for massive, damaging cuts in spending levels. The legislation before us is confirmation that those fears were justified. The cuts it would impose would do very little to reduce our budget deficit, while doing much to harm working Americans, and leave untouched one large cause of deficits, the unfair and unnecessary tax cuts for upper bracket Americans. In fact, the price of those tax cuts for upper bracket taxpayers, about $30 billion a year, far exceeds the $4 billion in spending cuts included in this bill. In other words, we could avoid draconian spending cuts if we do not continue the Bush tax cuts for the roughly one in 50 U.S. households with incomes above $250,000 a year, households that have done very well in the last 10 years while the middle class has lost ground.

That is not a fair approach. I cannot agree to it, and I will vote against this continuing resolution.

I yield the floor. I suggest the absence a quorum.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the rules of procedure of the Committee on Armed Services be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I will vote in support of S. 223, of the FAA Air Transportation Modernization and Safety Improvement Act and I urge its adoption and enactment.

The Senate is already on record in support of the contents of this bill. This is because the bill we are voting on today is almost identical to the FAA authorization bill that passed the Senate 93-0 in March of 2010. The last reauthorization bill expired at the end of fiscal year 2007 and since then we have passed 17 short-term extensions. We are well overdue to enact a long-term reauthorization of FAA's programs in order to provide important funding increases and program improvements that will enhance the safety and efficiency of our Nation's aviation system. In so doing we will make key investments in our nation's aviation infrastructure as well as create good jobs in the process.

Our global economy depends on the smooth and efficient movement of goods, services and people from city to city and across international borders. A safe and efficient aviation system goes hand in hand with a strong economy. We are fortunate to have the best aviation system in the world and we must continue to make the necessary investments and upgrades to retain that high standard. The FAA reauthorization bill helps us to do this by addressing problems of capacity, congestion and delays. This will ensure our aviation system can handle the projected growth in airlines passengers.

The FAA reauthorization bill being considered by the Senate today will create much needed jobs by providing the funding and directives for safety improvements at our airports and in the aviation industry. For instance, in Michigan the FAA is building two new air traffic control towers, at Kalamazoo and Traverse City. The FAA is also repaving numerous runways and taxiways, including at Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport, Alpena County Regional Airport, Bishop International Airport, Sawyer International Airport and at other airports around the state. The FAA is also constructing new terminal buildings at Kalamazoo/Battle Creek International Airport and at MBS International Airport in Freeland, Michigan. Additionally, FAA funds are paying for the design of a new building for aircraft rescue and firefighting and snow removal equipment at Pellston Regional Airport in Emmet County. These are much needed upgrades to Michigan airports and will make flying into and around Michigan safer and easier. These are the kinds of improvements this bill will continue to make possible in the future.

A key component of S. 223 will modernize our air traffic control system by building the Next Generation Air Transportation System-- NextGen--of satellite-based navigation. The NextGen system will be more accurate and more efficient than the current radar-based air traffic control system. It will also result in significant fuel efficiencies and time savings by allowing aircraft to fly more direct routes. This is good for the environment, good for air carriers and good for the flying public. The bill also provides flexibility to airports in using Airport Improvement Program funds as well as studying ways to raise revenue for airport projects through a pilot program.

This bill also includes important passenger rights protections. It requires airlines to plan for delays and protect passengers while they are on an aircraft, including how airlines will provide adequate food, water and access to restrooms. It also requires that passengers be allowed to deplane after 3 hours on the tarmac.

And this bill makes important improvements to the Essential Air Service Program, which provides rural communities with access to the national air transportation system. The EAS program is important to Michigan because we have eight communities that rely on EAS subsidies to help provide them with daily commercial air service. This bill increases EAS program funding by $73 million a year to $200 million annually. I joined my colleagues in defeating a McCain amendment that would have eliminated the Essential Air Service Program. I strongly oppose attempts to deprive Michiganians living in the less populated areas of our State of commercial air service. For businesses in the affected communities, this service is an economic lifeline that connects them to the web of both national and international commerce. At a time when we're doing everything we can to compete and to increase the number of jobs, cutting off that access makes no sense.

Again, I am pleased to vote yes on final passage of the FAA Air Transportation Modernization and Safety Improvement Act and I hope the House of Representatives will also act quickly to adopt a bill.

Mr. President, for the Committee on Armed Services I report favorably the following nomination lists which were printed in the Records on the dates indicated, and ask unanimous consent, to save the expense of reprinting on the Executive

Calendar that these nominations lie at the Secretary's desk for the information of Senators.

Mr. President, in 1986, the Congress wisely established the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund to pay for operation and maintenance of our Nation's harbors. This fund, which is fed by a tax based on the value of goods passing through our ports, today has a balance of more than $5.7 billion--a significant sum of money to address our Nation's need for clear and navigable harbors connecting our Nation's farmers and manufacturers to the web of international commerce.

But that $5.7 billion is not being used that way, or at least, not to the extent it should be. Despite that significant balance, our harbors are struggling because of unmet maintenance needs. In the Great Lakes region alone, more than 18 million cubic yards of material need to be dredged from harbors to ensure safe navigation. Dredging these harbors would be a $200 million job. And on the coasts, similar backlogs threaten the safe and efficient movement of commerce that creates jobs and helps the American economy grow. The Army Corps of Engineers estimates that the nation's 59 busiest ports are available less than 35 percent of the time because they are inadequately maintained. Unless we act, the failure to address these maintenance needs could slow the flow of goods, reduce economic growth, cost jobs, and create hazards to navigation that could lead to accidents and environmental damage.

We need to address that maintenance backlog. The Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund can provide the funding to do so. But Congress must take action to ensure we address these needs. That is why today, Senator Hutchison and I, joined by 12 of our colleagues, have introduced the Harbor Maintenance Act of 2011.

Simply put, our legislation would connect our spending on harbor maintenance to the revenue collected in the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund. As commerce continues to grow and shipping becomes an ever-more- important driver of economic growth, proper maintenance is vital.

A wise car owner does not ignore the need to change the oil. A smart homeowner makes sure the roof is in good shape. They do so because a small investment in maintenance today can prevent much bigger costs tomorrow. We should follow the same philosophy when it comes to our harbors. We should ensure that we make smart investments today that will pay off for years to come.

I thank Senator Hutchison and our co-sponsors for their work on behalf of this important legislation, and I urge my colleagues to help us ensure its passage.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, in 1986, the Congress wisely established the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund to pay for operation and maintenance of our Nation's harbors. This fund, which is fed by a tax based on the value of goods passing through our ports, today has a balance of more than $5.7 billion--a significant sum of money to address our Nation's need for clear and navigable harbors connecting our Nation's farmers and manufacturers to the web of international commerce.

But that $5.7 billion is not being used that way, or at least, not to the extent it should be. Despite that significant balance, our harbors are struggling because of unmet maintenance needs. In the Great Lakes region alone, more than 18 million cubic yards of material need to be dredged from harbors to ensure safe navigation. Dredging these harbors would be a $200 million job. And on the coasts, similar backlogs threaten the safe and efficient movement of commerce that creates jobs and helps the American economy grow. The Army Corps of Engineers estimates that the nation's 59 busiest ports are available less than 35 percent of the time because they are inadequately maintained. Unless we act, the failure to address these maintenance needs could slow the flow of goods, reduce economic growth, cost jobs, and create hazards to navigation that could lead to accidents and environmental damage.

We need to address that maintenance backlog. The Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund can provide the funding to do so. But Congress must take action to ensure we address these needs. That is why today, Senator Hutchison and I, joined by 12 of our colleagues, have introduced the Harbor Maintenance Act of 2011.

Simply put, our legislation would connect our spending on harbor maintenance to the revenue collected in the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund. As commerce continues to grow and shipping becomes an ever-more- important driver of economic growth, proper maintenance is vital.

A wise car owner does not ignore the need to change the oil. A smart homeowner makes sure the roof is in good shape. They do so because a small investment in maintenance today can prevent much bigger costs tomorrow. We should follow the same philosophy when it comes to our harbors. We should ensure that we make smart investments today that will pay off for years to come.

I thank Senator Hutchison and our co-sponsors for their work on behalf of this important legislation, and I urge my colleagues to help us ensure its passage.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I come to speak in support of the resolution submitted today by Senator Kirk, cosponsored by myself, Senator Kyl, Senator Bill Nelson, and Senator Casey.

Our resolution would add our voice to the many voices who are calling for the Iranian Government to respect the undeniable and universal rights of its people. It would condemn continuing violent repression on the part of the Iranian Government; reaffirm our Nation's commitment to universal freedoms; express our support for the Iranian people in their peaceful calls for reform; call on the Iranian Government to release those detained solely on the basis of their religion, faith, ethnicity, race, gender, sexual orientation, or political belief; call on the United Nations to establish an independent human rights monitor for Iran; and reaffirm the universality of individual rights and the importance of democratic elections. It would amplify and strengthen the message that 24 of us sent this week in letter to Secretary Clinton urging her to work with the United Nations Human Rights Commission to establish a human rights monitor for Iran.

Recent events in Iran have continued a pattern of abuse, repression, and violation of civil and human rights that is all too familiar.

The people of Iran have rightly seen recent events in the Muslim world, including the removal of dictators in Tunisia and Egypt, as confirmation of the power of nonviolent protest. Just as they did in the aftermath of flawed elections in 2009, the people of Iran have sought to speak out against the corruption and repression in their government.

If justice is to be done, the Government of Iran would allow these protests, hear the grievances of the people, reform a government whose autocratic substance is in no way concealed by the facade of representative democracy that the regime has constructed. Instead, the Iranian Government has quashed protest, cut off access to the Internet and other means of communication, and placed opposition leaders under house arrest. Members of the ruling regime have called for the execution of opposition leaders and for violent repression of dissent.

We have seen in just a few short weeks the dramatic power of nonviolent protest. We have seen that ultimately, dictatorship will lose its iron grip. I believe we are all confident that the march of time and progress will restore to the people of Iran the rights their government denies them.

But today, as the Iranian people bear the brunt of autocracy and as dissenters face the threat of violent repression, it is important for all those who believe in universal rights to speak out against that repression and violence, to let the people of Iran know that they do not face these threats alone, and to declare that we are in support of their attempts to determine the course of their nation. I strongly support this resolution and call for its immediate passage.

Mr. President, I am proud, for many reasons, that I am a graduate of Swarthmore College. But among those reasons is the fact that as a graduate of Swarthmore, I am in the same company as Eugene Lang, a 1938 graduate of the college. Few if any of our school's many distinguished graduates have matched Gene Lang's ability and determination to use his talents in the service of his fellow man.

If his resume consisted only of his extraordinarily successful business career, Gene would be an admirable figure. As founder of REFAC Technology Development Corporation, in more than a half a century of work, he has helped foster innovation, particularly in manufacturing, by helping American inventors and entrepreneurs profit from their ideas.

But what he has done with the earnings from that business is truly remarkable.

In 1981, Gene paid a visit to P.S. 121, the Harlem elementary school he had attended as a boy. He was going to speak to a group of sixth graders preparing to move on to middle school. Before his speech, he spoke with the principal, who told him that three out of every four of the students he would address would never finish high school.

To a man who entered college at the age of 14 and had an advanced business degree by his 20th birthday, this was unacceptable. And so he told the students that day: Education has allowed me to follow my dreams, and it can do the same for you too. He promised each and every student that day that if they would work hard, stay in school and

graduate from high school, he would pay their way to college.

Gene's promise became the ``I Have a Dream'' Foundation, and it did not just benefit the 61 students he addressed that day. It inspired similar promises all over the world, more than 200 now, where others who have enjoyed the benefits of education have followed Gene's example and invested in bringing those benefits to others. In my own State, the Kalamazoo Promise, a pledge by a small group of anonymous donors to give every Kalamazoo public school student a chance at a college education, is just one example of the kinds of programs Gene has inspired.

That is not all. Determined to connect America's universities more closely to the societies they serve, in 2001 he founded Project Pericles, which provides funding for more than 20 U.S. colleges and universities to help them include social responsibility and citizenship in their curricula. His donations to Swarthmore, Columbia, the New School University and other institutions have made him one of higher education's most important benefactors. President Clinton honored him in 1996 with the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

This weekend Swarthmore will honor Gene with a celebration of his life and work. Fittingly, this won't just be a celebratory dinner. It will also be a search for answers, for solutions on how to solve problems and improve our society. Symposia will focus on the role of social responsibility in education and on the link between social change and the arts.

I want to add my voice to those honoring Eugene Lang this weekend at Swarthmore. Thousands of American students have achieved their dreams thanks in part to his dedication, persistence and effectiveness. Swarthmore pride in Eugene Lang will be on display this weekend. This Swarthmorean is proud to call him my friend.